THOMAS KEN AND IZAAK WALTON 161 



Droxford. The matter, however, was happily 

 set at rest, only a few weeks ago, by the 

 writer's discovery in one of the Composition 

 Books at the Record Office of the entry of 

 the payments made by ' William Hawkins, 

 S.T.P., in November 1664,' on his institution 

 to the living. The living of Droxford Dr. 

 Hawkins continued to hold, in conjunction 

 with his canonry, to which he had been 

 appointed two years previously, until the time 

 of his death, which occurred in 1691. The 

 fact, then, now fully established, of his son- 

 in-law holding preferment at Droxford as well 

 as at Winchester, may be taken as the un- 

 doubted explanation of the connection of those 

 two places in the will of Izaak Walton. With 

 the exception of an occasional visit to Farn- 

 ham he passed his closing years — 



serene and bright, 

 And calm as is a Lapland night, 



in the loving care of his daughter and her 

 husband, sometimes in the Close at Win- 

 chester, and sometimes in the rambling old 

 Droxford rectory on the banks of the Meon 

 stream. 



" And that these visits to Droxford were of 

 more than a mere passing nature may be 

 inferred, not only from the way in which he 

 speaks of his library and belongings, but also 

 from the fact, lately discovered by the writer, 

 that he had more than one intimate friend 

 among the residents there. . . . Among them 

 we find the name of ' Mr. John Darbyshire.' 

 The identity, therefore, of this individual, for 



M 



